Fight or Flight
by rurouni007
Summary: Bad dreams. Kinda angsty. Just remember there's always hope when the night is over.


**Disclaimer: Gosh, there's so many good nightmare consolation fics that I had to give a shot at one of my own… tell me what you think! I'm not usually this angst…**

Nightmares are funny things. The funniest is how sometimes you wake up and remember the whole thing and just never want to sleep again.

It wouldn't normally be this funny, but Flynn Ryder finds it hilarious.

Eugene Fitzherbert, on the other hand, finds it incredibly distressing.

The Flynn Ryder side gives a derisive snort, finding it all so amusing that he would be willing to give up his dream of aloneness and peace for a clueless and easily excitable girl.

But Eugene Fitzherbert realizes that she isn't just some girl. She's done something to his heart where it feels like her hands (her soft, delicate hands) have squeezed his heart and tangled all of his heartstrings into one giant knot.

Neither side of the man can accurately give a word to that feeling - well no, they can, but it's more of a choice not to name it, simply out of fear.

Fear because here he was, having yet another dream of his death. He's just given his life for Rapunzel, the girl with hair too long and far too magical to be normal. She wasn't normal, she wasn't like anyone he'd ever met. Purity, innocence, an eagerness to learn - things he had never seen nor had for his own. He was the son and brother of prostitutes, but he had to hide that fact along with all the other shame and deceit and lies. That's why he always went into the brothel and came out bragging to his companions about how he got his money's worth every time, but no one knows that he just gave them what little money he had and then left, no words or actions shared between them.

But he's dying and she's trying to save him. And it scares him even more to realize that he doesn't want to be saved. He doesn't want her to be in love with the man who had broken her heart by leaving and then broke it again by dying. He just doesn't think he's worth it.

In the dream, he does die, but then she dies too, and that's the worst part. She's so devastated she takes her own life and that scares him more than anything. Because that would mean the death of the most wonderful and innocent person who never got to fully see the world she was hidden from. And she didn't deserve it. He did.

And this nightmare keeps flashing in his mind. Flynn Ryder sneers while Eugene is so scared that it's left him shaking. He loves her. He's not some daring, suave adventurer anymore, he's become a man of his word, a man that's been trying to redeem himself, and he's doing it all for her.

So he keeps wondering if it's better if he just stayed dead.

Flynn Ryder truly doesn't understand what's happening though when Eugene appears at that girl's door and gently opens it. It's never locked.

Eugene steps to her bed and only sees her blissfully asleep, unaware of his inner turmoil, beating him like the waves that crashed and capsized Flynnigan Ryder's ship that one time.

No, Eugene needs her more than anything now. He touches the smooth skin of her cheek with the back of his hand, wondering if he could remember that feeling forever before he had to leave her so she could choose someone better. And besides, it wasn't like him at all to stick around for more than a few days. Before, he had his way with women and left, no problem.

Then why couldn't he bring himself to tear his eyes away from her sleeping form?

He slowly exhaled, not sure what to do. And then she stirred, mumbling something in her sleep, blearily trying to see through her heavy eyelids.

"…Eugene?" she managed to say, thick with sleep. He tried to swallow and found that he couldn't. That voice, despite the tiredness, sounded so content to discover that it was him.

"Yeah, it's me. Don't worry about it, okay? I just wanted to make sure you were asleep." A lie. Slippery, smooth, like an arrow through butter. The problem was that lying to her actually hurt and that scared him too_._ Lies and stories were all he had. Because who was he without them?

That meant he wasn't some arrogant, smart ass thief. He was just a heartless bastard that took and took and took from everyone and wanted to be alone. Or at least, he had been. It was all terribly confusing.

Rapunzel steadily was waking up and could see the distress on his face. This was hard to hide. And that didn't settle well with her.

"Eugene, what's wrong? Can - can I do something? Um, um, come sit by me!" She sat up and threw the covers off her legs and patted the spot next to her.

Reluctantly, he sat down. She put a hand on his knee. It made him shiver.

"Can you tell me what's going on?"

He couldn't even talk. It was like his tongue was frozen over. He just had no control over who he was anymore, possibly experiencing these brand new emotions for the girl beside him, and yet he also felt horrible for doing so.

She tried to get him to talk by squeezing his knee. No reaction. A little furrow between her eyebrows formed on her face, a reaction to his lack of communication. He had been there to comfort her many times already. Like when she realized that the woman that raised her was dead. When she realized that the same woman may have not actually loved her the way Rapunzel did. When she was confused and lost with no one else to talk to. When she realized she was a stranger to her real parents. When she realized that there was just so much she didn't know.

So here she was, trying her best. And it hurt her to see that she wasn't doing a good enough job. He came to her in need and she was failing him. He never failed her, ever.

"Eugene… you know you can tell me anything, right? I just, um, I just wanted you to know that." Still unsure, she carefully wraps her arms around his midsection, under his arms which have just become dead weight.

She laid her head on his shoulder, still waiting for something to happen.

And then a miracle comes. He feels her warmth, and it spreads from her body to his, and it steadily grows. His arms gain strength, his tongue melts and all he wants to do is apologize over and over.

But he doesn't have the ability to tell her yet. Flynn Ryder never wanted to know love since Eugene Fitzherbert grew up without it. And he suddenly realizes that this has been something that was hiding deep within his gut, suppressed all of those years, hidden from the world and from himself, kindled from the instant when he discovered that the nuns at the orphanage truly didn't care. No one had.

Rapunzel's warmth frightens him to no end but there's something in it that makes him need her more than ever, more than he's ever needed anyone before. So he can only wrap his arms around her in return and bury his face into her short hair and quietly try to keep his tears silent.

They never end up falling asleep that night.


End file.
